Learning through Leadership: Connecting with the Disabled Community in the Classroom

The Centers for Disease Control concluded in a recent study that approximately 61 million – one in four – Americans have a classified and diagnosed disability. The National Institute of Health (NIH) indicated in 2022 that the disability community represents more than 27% of the U.S. adult population, making that community the single largest minority group in the country. Breaking it down even further, a study conducted in 2016 yielded that approximately 19% of all undergraduate university students reported having a disability. The odds are that this percentage is higher now. And the odds are you have students from that community in all of your classes.

In my last blog entry, I talked about the elephant (me) in the classroom. I shared that my very visible physical disability has created a personal teaching philosophy of transparency and authenticity, even further enhanced by leadership research, a Biblical worldview, and a life-sucking – I mean life-affirming – dissertation. Since I planted the seed in my earlier post, I wanted to write again to help water the growing phenomenon of leadership and disability in the classroom. What kinds of methods and tools can we as educators effectively, and dare I say, lovingly, apply when teaching in the classroom when we know the chances are great (one-in-four kind of great) that we are teaching students whose story includes having a seen or unseen disability?

There is a stigma that surrounds disabled individuals and while most universities have accommodations and official services for students with disabilities, disabled students experience isolation, insecurity, disempowerment, and discouragement.¹ Additionally, research indicates that disabled students endure exclusion and segregation throughout their college experience, necessitating the need for more inclusive initiatives and programs.² Oakes et al. contended from the higher education lens that universities need critical inclusion assessments for students with intellectual and developmental disabilities to enable positive experiences and relationships.³ Because higher education is currently shifting and pedagogically changing within the cultural and social landscape, there is a need for positive leadership as an operational and strategic paradigm.⁴

Procknow et al. contended that authentic leadership (AL) can be an answer –  a real conduit toward relationally restoring the social experiences of the disabled community.⁵ As a definition, AL is a multidimensional phenomenon of leader behavior informing positive psychological capabilities and a practical, ethical climate providing enhanced “self-awareness, an internalized moral perspective, balanced processing of information, and relational transparency.”⁶ Specifically, relational transparency, one of the four constructs within AL, incorporates “showing one’s true self to others, expressing true thoughts and emotions, and openly sharing information.”⁷ Relational transparency engages the leader-follower dynamic and presents a significant construct of positive leadership. Procknow et al. contended that the constructs of authentic leadership could create a social understanding of persons with disabilities (PWD) due to other norming that have ostracized PWD in general.⁸

So that’s what I wanted to find out – my dissertation explored the lived experiences of disabled undergraduate students in the classroom setting within the lens of faculty-led authentic leadership and relational transparency. I wanted to know if AL could make a difference and whether applying effective AL strategies and practices could actually help the disability community.

I won’t bore you with the details (I mean, I can but that might need to be another post), but the short answer is yes. Yes, faculty-led AL and relational transparency are needed in the classroom to help students with disabilities feel seen and heard. What started as a life-sucking – I mean life-affirming – dissertation turned into a research study stoked with rich and thick data that spoke to my soul. There were themes and patterns and correlations and core conclusions, but I will get straight to the point – there are AL practices that educators and leaders can learn and adopt in the classroom and in our offices that will make a difference.

We can have better self and other awareness – really look out into the classroom and observe the students sitting in the chairs. Do they seem comfortable? Do they look nervous, or excited, or like they want to ask you a question but don’t want to interrupt class? Have the awareness to realize that unseen disabilities are…unseen. And, don’t assume anything about your students based on mere observation alone. In a negative sentiment study I conducted, the emotive word that my participants used the most was suspicion. Their professors were suspicious of their unseen disability, and in some cases, participants needed to prove beyond their official partnership with the university’s accessibility office that they were, in fact, disabled.⁹ Would any other member of a minority group be asked to prove they were part of that minority? Think about that for a second.

We can also think outside of the box. My research concluded that professors lack understanding, awareness, and ability to integrate fluidly pedagogical culture into the classroom environment. We can do this by setting the tone from the very first class – being (appropriately) transparent with your students creates a feedback loop, letting them know that you as their faculty and leader authentically want to know them and that you also want to be known. Share a little about yourself, share a bit of your testimony, what God is doing in your life, share your struggles and your successes, and see what happens. The students will begin to feel a connection to you, and they might even share back with you. Create a safe, caring, and learning environment, and then wait and watch to see what happens. When the timing is right and they begin to open up, you can begin to learn from your students with disabilities. What is their story, what do they need, and how can you help? Don’t force it – just be there.

We can recognize that while the phenomenon of disability usually appears in most university diversity statements, it quickly gets lost and is not included in diversity conversations or in D & I initiatives. My participants shared that many of their professors did not believe that disability was a form of diversity – even though disability is the largest minority group in the country.

There is more, but I will leave you with a few final thoughts. Being a professor is being in a position of leadership. Leading requires high-level cognitive development integration across multiple domains to maintain organizational relevancy, cultural consistency, and transformational processes.¹⁰ I contended that the intra-complexity needed from the leader to have a heightened self and other awareness, visual perception, humility, transparency, and illuminated perception informs the outward inter-complexity within the cyclical process of leader-follower relationship, trust, and operational success. We need to be able to, in real-time, assess and observe our classroom, and right then and there diagnose the right course of action to create the best environment for the individuals in our care.

And lastly – but not in order of importance, and outside of my dissertation – we need to lead like Jesus led. We need to follow the scripture in Philippians 2:5-11 that teaches us

 In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature^[a] God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature^[b] of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death—even death on a cross! Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Jesus was an authentic leader. He was relational, transparent, and real. He was also humble and self-aware. People learned from him, and people followed him. And, honestly, while my research was centered on students with disabilities, these AL tools and strategies would benefit every classroom, regardless of who is sitting in the seats. And that’s the thing – because we never know at first who is sitting in those seats, adopting a leadership philosophy based on authenticity and transparency might very well make a difference in our work as educators and Christians, not just in planting seeds but in nurturing the hearts and minds of future generations.

1. Lizabeth A  Barclay, et al. “Virtue Theory and Organizations: Considering Persons with Disabilities,” Journal of Managerial Psychology  27, no. 4 (2012) 330–46, https://doi.org/10.1108/02683941211220153; Grace L. Francis, Grace L., et al. “‘It’s a Constant Fight:’ Experiences of College Students with Disabilities.” Journal of Postsecondary Education and Disability 32, no. 3 (2019): 247-261.
2. Jeanne L. Higbee, et al. “Disability in Higher Education: Redefining Mainstreaming.” Journal of Diversity Management, vol. 5, no. 2, 2010, pp. 7–16, https://doi.org/10.19030/jdm.v5i2.806.
3. Lindsey R. Oakes, et al. “Exploring Inclusion of College Students With IDD in Campus Recreation Through the Lens of Recreation Departments’ Organizational Level Stakeholders,” Recreational Sports Journal, 45, no. 1 (2021): 34–51, https://doi.org/10.1177/1558866120982594.
4. Richard Bolden, et al. “Leadership in Higher Education: Facts, Fictions and Futures — Introduction to the Special Issue,” Leadership 5, no. 3 (2009): 291–98, https://doi.org/10.1177/1742715009337761.
5. Greg Procknow, et al. “(Dis)Ableing Notions of Authentic Leadership Through the Lens of Critical Disability Theory,” Advances in Developing Human Resources 19, no. 4 (2017): 362–77, https://doi.org/10.1177/1523422317728732.
6. Fred O. Walumbwa, et al. “Authentic Leadership: Development and Validation of a Theory-Based Measure,” Journal of Management, 34, no. 1 (2008): 89–126, https://doi.org/10.1177/0149206307308913.
7. Arménio Rego, et al. “Are Relationally Transparent Leaders More Receptive to the Relational Transparency of Others? An Authentic Dialog Perspective,” Journal of Business Ethics 180, no. 2 (2022) 695–709, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-021-04792-6.
8. Procknow, et al. “(Dis)Ableing Notions of Authentic Leadership Through the Lens of Critical Disability Theory.”
9. Anna L. Sinclair, Disability and Authentic Leadership: A Qualitative Phenomenological Undergraduate Case Study (Order No. 30639327). Available from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses Global; Publicly Available Content Database. 2023 (2861560113).
10. Kim S. Cameron and Robert E. Quinn, Diagnosing and Changing Organizational Culture Based on the Competing Values Framework. 3rd ed. (Jossey-Bass, 2011).